UC Berkeley MBA Team Takes Top Prize in Ethics Challenge
Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management, has announced the results of its first annual Social Responsibility and Ethics Challenge.
Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management, has announced the results of its first annual Social Responsibility and Ethics Challenge. The contest attraced 56 MBA teams from around the globe.
Challenge entrants worked on a business case involving an ethical or social responsibility issue which was presented to them by event organizers in March. All teams submitted their responses via the Web and the top five teams -- UC Berkeley, HEC Montreal, London Business School, UCLA, and University of Kansas -- were invited to compete in the final round held on Thunderbird's Glendale campus earlier this month.
UC Berkeley took home first prize, followed by UCLA in second place and London Business School in third. The top five schools beat out participating teams including Babson College, Kellogg School of Management, Kenan-Flagler, ESADE, Cornell University, Georgetown University and Northwestern among others.
Thunderbird MBA candidate and Challenge organizer Luisa Vallejo '05 feels strongly about the need for events of this nature.
"We need to spread worldwide that a corporate social responsibility mindset can create a difference in the business world today," said Luisa, who is also president of the Net Impact Club, the student group that sponsored the event. "And because there is no other competition of this kind in the corporate social responsibility field, we decided to launch it."
The business plan competition challenged MBA candidates to create socially responsible solutions to real business dilemmas. Tyco International, On Semiconductor, Salesforce.com and the CSR Group each provided a question to the event, hoping to discover usable solutions for handling their real-world ethical issues and develop ideas on how to extend the links in their corporate social responsibility chain.
The judging panel was comprised of Thunderbird faculty from the Lincoln Center for Ethics in International Management and executives from the four sponsoring companies. Participant proposals were judged on the basis of uniqueness, viability and fit for the company. The top three teams won cash prizes of $5,000, $3,000 and $1,000. But, unlike other business plan competitions, half of each prize was donated to the team's charity of choice.
"We expect to help raise Thunderbird's reputation in the corporate social responsibility and ethics field among the international business community," Vallejo said. "Thunderbird, as the number one school in international management, is the right business school to lead such a competition."
Corporations are paying increasing attention to corporate responsibility and ethics issues, in large part because of all the negative publicity garnered by the misdeeds of some major business leaders. According to a 2001 Cone Corporate Citizenship study, 91% of Americans said that if a company exhibited poor social responsibility they would consider switching to another company's product or service, 83% would refuse to buy that company's stock, and 80% would refuse to work at that company.
More information about the Social Responsibility and Ethics Challenge and its outcome is available online.
Challenge entrants worked on a business case involving an ethical or social responsibility issue which was presented to them by event organizers in March. All teams submitted their responses via the Web and the top five teams -- UC Berkeley, HEC Montreal, London Business School, UCLA, and University of Kansas -- were invited to compete in the final round held on Thunderbird's Glendale campus earlier this month.
UC Berkeley took home first prize, followed by UCLA in second place and London Business School in third. The top five schools beat out participating teams including Babson College, Kellogg School of Management, Kenan-Flagler, ESADE, Cornell University, Georgetown University and Northwestern among others.
Thunderbird MBA candidate and Challenge organizer Luisa Vallejo '05 feels strongly about the need for events of this nature.
"We need to spread worldwide that a corporate social responsibility mindset can create a difference in the business world today," said Luisa, who is also president of the Net Impact Club, the student group that sponsored the event. "And because there is no other competition of this kind in the corporate social responsibility field, we decided to launch it."
The business plan competition challenged MBA candidates to create socially responsible solutions to real business dilemmas. Tyco International, On Semiconductor, Salesforce.com and the CSR Group each provided a question to the event, hoping to discover usable solutions for handling their real-world ethical issues and develop ideas on how to extend the links in their corporate social responsibility chain.
The judging panel was comprised of Thunderbird faculty from the Lincoln Center for Ethics in International Management and executives from the four sponsoring companies. Participant proposals were judged on the basis of uniqueness, viability and fit for the company. The top three teams won cash prizes of $5,000, $3,000 and $1,000. But, unlike other business plan competitions, half of each prize was donated to the team's charity of choice.
"We expect to help raise Thunderbird's reputation in the corporate social responsibility and ethics field among the international business community," Vallejo said. "Thunderbird, as the number one school in international management, is the right business school to lead such a competition."
Corporations are paying increasing attention to corporate responsibility and ethics issues, in large part because of all the negative publicity garnered by the misdeeds of some major business leaders. According to a 2001 Cone Corporate Citizenship study, 91% of Americans said that if a company exhibited poor social responsibility they would consider switching to another company's product or service, 83% would refuse to buy that company's stock, and 80% would refuse to work at that company.
More information about the Social Responsibility and Ethics Challenge and its outcome is available online.
